Ever since the Income Tax authorities conducted raids for three consecutive days on the residences and offices of Telugu Desam Party Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh, there have been curious enquiries about this otherwise low-profile MP and his meteoric rise into a super-rich businessman-turned-politician.

For many, Ramesh is known only as a right-hand of TDP president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the left hand being former Union minister and another Rajya Sabha member Y S Chowdary alias Sujana Chowdary.

Many people are of the view that like Sujana Chowdary, Ramesh also belongs to Kamma community and both of them look after the money matters pertaining to the the TDP.

But not many people know that Ramesh actually belongs to Velama community and his sudden rise in politics and business is attributed to his connections with Kamma community.

Ramesh married to a Kamma woman – it was actually a love marriage. And this relation brought him closer to Chandrababu Naidu.

His rapid growth in riches during the regime of Naidu in the past and now in the last four years is said to be only because of this Kamma link.

Ramesh belongs to Potladurthy village of Erraguntla mandal in Kadapa district. His grandfather Subbarayudu used to do country liquor business.

All his four sons were also involved in the same country liquor making, which they expanded from Kadapa to Chittoor district.

One of these four sons is Muniswamy Naidu, father of Ramesh, who used to look after country liquor trade in Chittoor district.

It was how Ramesh got in touch with Chandrababu Naidu and that was how Ramesh gradually entered into politics.

In 1994, Naidu entrusted the responsibility of coordinating the TDP activities in Kuppam and Chandragiri constituencies to Ramesh.

Soon after Naidu took over the reins of the TDP and the government after dethroning N T Rama Rao, Ramesh financial position started witnessing exponential growth.

With the support of Naidu, Ramesh acquired lands of Gudimalla temple in Chittoor district at a cheaper rate through auctioning. Pledging these lands in banks, he took Rs 400 crore loan.

According to former MLA from Proddatur N Varadarajulu Reddy who is now his bitter enemy in the constituency, Ramesh’s father Muniswamy Naidu had gone to jail for killing two persons. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

“But he exploited the caste equations and appealed to then chief minister Jalagam Vengal Rao who was also a Velama, Muniswamy Naidu came out of the jail by getting his jail term reduced,” Varadarajulu Reddy alleged several times.

While Ramesh did not make much progress in business when Naidu was out of power for 10 years between 2004 and 2014.

“But he made a rapid turnaround in his fortunes in the last four years after Naidu became the chief minister again by grabbing contracts worth thousands of crores, say his critics.

Till recently, it was the convention media that had a huge say in influencing voters’ perception. Although that power is still intact, the emergence of social media has proved to be a complete game-changer.Parties which were generally lacking in media support saw the internet as a huge boon to bolster public opinion in their favour.

Narendra Modi was crowned Prime Minister on social media before actually becoming the Prime Minister of the country through the electoral process thanks to his digital army.Undoubtedly, digital is the new frontier that will have a key role in making or breaking political partiesWith respect to Andhra Pradesh, the TDP, YSRCP and Jana Sena are sparing no effort to reach out to the masses through this medium.

According to sources, Jana Sena Party has around 570 salaried employees on their social media team alone.A total budget of around Rs 80 crore has been earmarked for this purpose by Thota Chandrashekar and three NRI’s of the Party.The TDP has around 3600 personnel in their social media team but some of them are volunteers who work for no pay merely out of their affection for the Party.

Similarly, the YSRCP has around 1500 people for digital media out of which 1000 are volunteers.While it is the TDP which is leading in conventional media, YSRCP has the upper hand on social media followed by the Jana Sena.Whether it is Chandrababu Naidu again or YS Jagan or Pawan Kalyan who will be forming the government in 2019 will depend to a large extent on the success of their digital armies respectively.